There's so many defects and so many qualities about "Night of the Running Man" that in the end all we get is a bad film that is quite good and a good film that is ridiculously bad. The idea is almost an encounter between "Collateral" and "No Country for Old Men" but without the same dynamism and quality of both films. Dialogs are poorly written and very very simplistic to the point of annoyance, and the situations are predictable, implausible and incredibly unrealistic. It's a very silly movie!Poor Andrew McCarthy suffers hell after finding a suitcase full of money in his cab, left by one of his unusual passengers. It looks like the mob is trying to get back the money and they hired a dangerous hit-man (Scott Glenn) to find it. On one side there's Andrew running away from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and then Los Angeles, and on the other side, Glenn's tactics to find this dumb guy, who seems to be getting really smart after this sudden lucky strike. The most obvious clichés of the world are used here again and again.However, the great surprise of this movie are the villains and their methods of doing their job. Glenn is very effective as the scary guy who kills everybody on his way, the kind of guy who doesn't trust anybody. He's very terrifying. And there's another villain, played by John Glover, who is very scary and because of his torture methods that the film gets interesting (when he puts McCarthy's feet on boiling water to prevent him from running away). That scene alone worths the whole film.But this movie cannot escape of its negative aspects. Fight scenes are badly executed; lots of laughable parts; the amazing fact of a guy who had his feet burned walking on crutches one day later after the incident (at least put him on a wheelchair when walking out of the hospital, then I would believe just a little); the presentation of both major characters are terrible, you don't even have time to relate or care for the hero, he's simply thrown on the screen and we "have" to like him. Uninteresting as an action film or as a thriller, and a little bit funny as a drama, "Night of the Running Man" is good in making us wondering why good actors allow themselves to waste their talents in such a simplistic and dull project where their skills aren't well used. It's not a complete waste of time but when you think of the possibilities of doing better things on a boring day, you won't even feel guilty of missing this, even if you admire the people involved in this. 5/10

"Night of the Running Man" opens with a real "grabber" of an opening, as likable cab driver (Andrew McCarthy) unintentionally gets involved with a fare who has a bag of money stolen from the mob. When the bag guy is killed, McCarthy decides to run with the bag. Enter Scott Glenn as an arrogant "fixer', who is sent by the head boss (Wayne Newton) to retrieve the million dollars and eliminate the cab driver. Glenn is excellent as the somewhat paranoid, darkly sadistic, methodical hunter. Along the way, John Glover becomes a colorful accomplice of Glenn's. This film has excellent character development, a compelling story, a sympathetic hero, and is unpredictable. Highly recommended. - MERK

About once a year I check to see if this flick is scheduled for release on DVD. It still isn't (Jan 05).I only have about 30 titles that I own on DVD, but I would definitely purchase this one. It has some very memorable scenes (yes, some are quite graphic and gruesome, but I wouldn't call it "gratuitous" violence). I'd say it is a decent production in every way, but for some reason it seems to be treated as a very obscure movie.Actually, I had to go to a movie buff message board to find the title, which I had forgotten. But it didn't take much of a description for a true movie buff to recognize what movie this is!!!

SPOILERS.Unprepossessing cabbie finds himself in possession of one million bucks skimmed from a Vegas casino. An icy killer is called in by the organization to track him down and there follows tense little game of hide and seek that leads to Salt Lake City, with killer (Glenn) only two steps behind the cabbie who is by this time a nervous shambles. Another organization killer in brought into the picture, this time a friendly, matter-of-fact, guy with a sense of humor (Glover). Glover takes the cabbie to his own home, ties him up, and gleefully boils his feet until they are lobster red. Cabbie escapes again, winds up in a hospital, the same hospital that Glover finds himself in. There is a meeting between Glenn and Glover, the two professionals, in which Glover comes up with something out of a B Western -- "Someday the two of us will have to find out which of us is better." I know that it's dumb, but it doesn't leap out at the view because so far the entire movie is pretty dumb. For instance, the cabbie (McCarthy) is stupid for telling a friendly waitress exactly where he's going and how. When the waitress accidentally runs into Glenn she's dumb for not simply denying she met McCarthy but also for lying about where he's headed. (She gets offed in a spectacular fashion for suffering from terminal dumbness.) Then we have McCarthy in hospital with his braised feet being treated by a Barbie Doll of a blonde nurse who falls for him for no discernible reason. She helps him escape (again) takes him and his million bucks to her home and he's sufficiently recovered to be able to make strenuous love although, admittedly, this doesn't require him to spend much time on his feet. Lucky for that, because by any reasonable standards they must be the size of watermelons by now.I hope you're following this because there's going to be a quiz. A final attempt an escape fails and the four principals are brought together -- Glenn, Glover, McCarthy and Barbie. Glenn plugs Glover, proving he's the "better" of the two according to some indecipherable code. Glenn gets his just desserts though. Just as he is about to slice off McCarthy's head, McCarthy whacks him in the forehead with a light board that happens to have a longish nail sticking out of it, thus administering the lobotomy that is long overdue. Glenn mutters a few ironic words, then dies, which is just as well because with all that frontal lobe damage he'd never be able to plan far enough ahead to decide what kind of pizza to order.McCarthy and Barbie now have not only the million bucks but two dead bodies, which they destroy in a fire, leaving the organization to think that the bodies are their own, rather than the killers'. It reminds me a lot of Don Siegel's "Charlie Varrick," but without any grace notes whatever. The motives are weak and not believable. Except for Glenn and Glover, the characters held no interest for me. I didn't want to see McCarthy get killed, of course, because he's an ordinary guy, although to be sure than million dollars doesn't belong to him. And Barbie is unimpeachable. I wouldn't like to see her killed even if she were evil personified. I was also sorry to see Glover get it. What a terrific ham. But Seagal's movie is much more fun.